Modeling in the XXI century
By Mario Covalski
When you purchase a DVD player, you become the final consumer of that product, that’s your role. When speaking about modeling, things are quite different, the final consumer, plays at times, a different role, he himself develops the product (and this is the way some manufacturers started), the modeler is who builds the model and writes the techniques notes for others more inexperienced, etc. That’s to say the consumer is part of the whole machinery that sets modeling in motion and quite in an active way. I personally can’t imagine the activity in a different way.
Around the ‘80s, when you, patient reader of my editorials, used to finish a model, you offered it to your family, relatives, friends …eventually to an incipient modeling club, let’s say to a small number of people, to be judged and obviously to receive praises. The best, I mean, those real masters used to write books offering their secrets or tips to newcomers. Many years could go by until hearing that somebody, from a remote place of the world, had developed a new and fantastic technique.
Paper magazines brought a radical change to this situation, now the modeler could show, his finished projects through international media or even in magazines of local circulation; but fulfilling certain essential requirements, a text explaining everything done should accompany the handful of pictures, there were and still are gallery sections for readers showing a sole picture, but there is a limited space, and obviously, not all the pictures are published.
Internet and the digital cameras, were the last step in this evolution, nowadays there are web sites which show daily, like an open email system, everything and exactly they receive, even they show the greetings for the webmaster. The forums, showing how the project is progressing, are also a good help to calm the modelers ANXIETY down.
These technological facilities have one negative point, it’s the difficulty that both paper and online magazines have to get competent writers of modeling articles, and this is natural, vanity plays and important role here, and the anxiety of showing is quickly satisfied when a hundreds of modelers see pictures of our model, and we proudly write some comment, that is nearly like saying, “here you have, I could do it!”. The media are now inexpensive and the modern man communicates more but with rather poor dialogue contents.
In previous editorials, I spoke about the lack of concern to the modeling as activity, leaving behind the children and teens’ needs, turning it in a race to death where only the one who adds more resin or etched parts, or makes the best scratch, can survive, long time has passed since we used to build just for fun, today it seems that we must achieve masterpieces, trying to be the best either in contests, forums…etc.
In this context, who can be interested in spending his valuable time writing long texts explaining how to and why things are done so that somebody inexperienced can learn?
A newcomer or even a teenager needs further information than a message in a forum, or four pictures with a greeting, and many times, he doesn’t know the questions he should ask.
We, modelers expect too much: new kits, more aftermarket, web sites to meet all our requirements, forums answering immediately some specific question…etc, without realizing that every action brings with it a reaction.
Don’t ask for new kits if the number of week end modelers doesn’t increase, or you really believe that Tamiya think of those who spend a whole year building a U$S 20 kit, don’t ask for aftermarket for kits that will not be manufactured, don’t look for excellent articles in magazines that expect a miracle to receive a top-quality note, even when paying for it.
All in all, in post modern society, man asks for too much…but is willing to give very little in return. Think about this.
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